Feeling like you can’t travel because life gets hectic is common I imagine. At least, that’s what it feels like to me. There are some days where it feels I want to be on the road rather than in an office, but my budget says otherwise. So, I got into the office. That feeling of needing to be on the road has been there for years. I notice it’s a stress response for myself. The office feels confining, but when I drive out on the 15 or the 10 and hit open space, it feels like I can finally breathe.

Last year, I didn’t travel as much as I had wanted to. An anniversary trip to Las Vegas, an overnight in Solvang, CA, and a turn around trip with friends to the Halloween event at the Winchester House in San Jose were the only ones I managed. They were fun and it made me miss taking little spontaneous trips to places I haven’t been or were revisiting. Now, being responsible for three little fluffy kitties, it feels like that availability for travel has decreased. 

That was my more negative side talking. In truth, I have the time and am building up the resources. When my husband and I adopted our kitties, I had thoughts of training them to be travel cats. It kinda fell through because I was inconsistent with the harness training. I know there’s still time, but a couple medical emergencies emptied our pockets a small bit and made me realize I need to have more of a savings to use for their medical care as needed. Especially if I start taking them out and about. Now, in the time I’m saving up, hopefully I can see if they are open to being harness trained. Obviously, I’m not going to make a cat do something they don’t want. So we’ll see what happens. They have been circling around me and my desk the whole time I’m writing this.

While I was thinking about it, I remembered a money bank I made out of a shadow box and it still sits behind my desk on a shelf. I’m building a savings to go drive Route 66 the full length and back. I had forgotten about it for the last 2 years and stopped adding to it during that time as well. Struggling with finances has always been there, but I’m doing better since learning techniques to get my impulse buying under control. Now that I rediscovered it, I’m going to start adding to it again. This year is the 100th anniversary of the Mother Road and I want to drive further than Kingman, AZ. 

Which circles back around to finding time between a day job and planning for my husband and I to possibly expand our little family. It’s a struggle to imagine where I can find the time to do any kind of traveling. Although, if I’m not actively looking for a solution to my problem, how am I ever going to find it? I love what I’m building here on my little blog and I’m hoping to expand it with travel stories and other little tidbits. It’s also encouraging me to revisit the podcast and YouTube channel I started in the last 2 years. Lack of belief in myself is why I gave them up. It’s my plan to use those platforms to give different types of information. The blog will be more behind the scenes. The podcast will be more history or back story based. The YouTube channel will be more exploring the actual places.

This year, though, I have a renewed sense of spirit. One of the podcasts I listened to gave some encouraging advice (I think it was the Jen Gottlieb Show). The advice was simple: you don’t have to believe in yourself 100% of the time, start with 51%. Hearing that, it’s been easier to believe in myself and show up for this. I’m excited to restart my other projects, but I’m not going to do them all at once because I’m not feeling that confident yet. As the year goes on, look for announcements about new episodes for either channel. I’m going to build more carefully with this blog as the foundation. Now, finding time to travel, that’ll be a challenge that I’m looking forward to.

I wish you a year full of adventure readers! Until next time, safe exploring everyone!